Saturday, January 10, 2009

Toyota will be showing a battery electric car - the 50 miles range FT-EV - in Detroit. But before you get too excited, Irv Miller, Group Vice President - Environmental and External Affairs, has some words of caution in his blog.

"It’s important to note that at this point the FT-EV remains strictly a concept."

Lest we forget, ten years ago Toyota produced the 100+ miles range RAV4 EV. And most of them are still on the road. For the record, mine currently has 65,000 miles on the original battery pack and still gets over 100 miles per charge.

The tragedy is that Toyota could put plug-in cars in showrooms today, but they refuse to be first. Rest assured, they won't be last.